Day 1 of the winter meetings saw the Twins complete a move that has seemed inevitable for a few weeks, as they re-signedMatt Capps to a one-year, $4.5 million contract with a $6 million option or $250,000 buyout for 2013. Capps' return is far more complex than the average $4.75 million deal because it involves so many strong emotions, conjures up so much frustration, and extends a series of extremely questionable decisions.

By trading Wilson Ramos to the Nationals for Capps in July of 2010 the Twins made a massive blunder, parting with a 22-year-old top prospect for a non-elite reliever they vastly overvalued because he was a so-called "proven closer." Capps pitched well down the stretch in 2010, but then received $7.15 million via the arbitration process this year and had a poor season while Ramos established himself as one of baseball's best all-around catchers at age 23.

Capps' poor pitching combined with Ramos' continued development in Washington led to many fans being strongly opposed to Capps' return under any circumstances, but general manager Terry Ryan, pitching coach Rick Anderson, and manager Ron Gardenhire repeatedly made it very clear that they think he's likely to bounce back in a big way. And for the most part they're right, at least to an extent.

Capps revealed after the season that he pitched through arm problems, which while far from a positive thing does help explain his diminished velocity, vanishing strikeout totals, and overall struggles. Beyond that his 4.25 ERA and 34-to-13 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 66 innings equaled a 4.49 xFIP that's within shouting distance of his 4.01 career mark and fairly close to palatable for, say, a seventh-inning setup man making a couple million bucks.

Unfortunately unless the Twins beef up the bullpen with a trade Capps looks destined to pitch in a higher-leverage role than the seventh inning, with closing again a very real possibility, and $4.75 million is considerably more than a mediocre setup man should be worth to a team with multiple holes to fill and limited room in a payroll dropping $10-15 million. And perhaps worst of all by re-signing Capps the Twins forfeited a valuable asset for their ongoing rebuilding effort.

Thanks to changes within the new collective bargaining agreement the Twins no longer had to offer Capps arbitration in order to receive their compensation for the Type B free agent signing elsewhere. That meant the Twins were essentially handed a free supplemental first-round pick for Capps and they handed it right back, giving up a top-75 pick for the right to pay him $4.75 million instead of simply letting him walk and signing a different mediocre veteran reliever.

Re-signing Capps for $4.75 million is certainly questionable enough on its own, especially given the Twins' self-imposed payroll crunch, but re-signing Capps for $4.75 million and tossing away a supplemental first-round pick makes little sense. Why not let Capps walk, invest that same money in one of numerous other similarly mediocre veteran relievers available as free agents, and at least pocket what would be a valuable pick that he'll no longer fetch after this year?

Under different circumstances Capps is, was, and can still be a perfectly decent setup man. If the Twins had acquired him for a mid-level prospect, paid him modest salaries, and used him in the seventh inning the perception of his performance would have been dramatically different. Unfortunately they gave up a top catching prospect to get him, paid $7.15 million to keep him, and have forfeited a draft pick to re-sign him for $4.75 million. I'm baffled, then and now.

I’d rather have Nathan for 1-2 years at 15 Million
(and a draft pick)
than Capps for 1 @ 4.5 and a 2nd year @ 6MM

JEEZUS GHRIST

Peter

Great signing by the Twins who believe in overpaying average pitchers who will still take the ball after another disappointing outing. Now get Cuddyer signed for four years and 40 million. 73 wins might be within reach! Go Rays, Go Nationals! Who the **** is Jesse Crain?

stymietime

I don’t understand why you get upset about the losing the draft pick. First, spending $1 on a player that has a 10% chance of having any sort of impact in the major leagues isn’t a perfect investment. Second, if Capps does maintain the closers role for this contract, the likelihood of him remaining the same type of free agent status is good, in which we are just delaying the opportunity to gain a draft pick for a few years. As far as I understand, the new CBA isn’t expiring after this year.
Everyone needs to let the Ramos trade go. It happened 2 years ago and it should have zero impact on making personnel decisions for 2012. A sunk cost is a sunk cost, people. Let it go.
And in regards to comparable signings this off-season, Jonathan Broxton signed a $4M deal with another $1M in incentives just to be a setup guy. Broxton’s past two seasons have been both injury filled and ineffective. Capps has outperformed him over that time, and if Capps were just another free-agent out there, this signing would look like a fair value contract with minimal long-term risk.

MC

stymietime…. that’s the point. They could have signed really anybody and it wouldn’t have cost them a draft pick, which has inherent value itself. So the expense is far greater. Not to mention the Twins still clearly plan to build from within and supplement with FA signings, thus they should place greater value on the picks themselves.

I was happy like everyone else that when Bill Smith was fired. However, I always felt Terry Ryan, lurking in the background, had a hand in all the bad baseball decisions made since he stepped down. I would have loved for him to simply retire and leave the Twins. Now, I am more convinced than ever that Terry Ryan is not the upgrade in GM that people think he is. In fact, a move this dumb fits right in with the BS era.

Why does a team that is rebuilding (and losing) need to worry about a closer anyway? What exactly does the Capps signing do to help the rebuilding of this team? Terry Ryan has rocks in his head. This is stupid on so many levels. What an idiot.

CoachFSCB

We used to hear that Nick Punto must have had some embarrassing or incriminating photos of Ron Gardenhire stashed away somewhere to account for his large amount of seemingly unwarranted playing time. This move makes me believe that Matt Capps must have a feature-length pornographic film starring the entire Twins front office and coaching staff somewhere ready for immediate release. The Ramos/Capps trade was a Bill Smith nightmare that now Terry Ryan won’t allow me to wake up from. For a team that needs to rebuild, this was a huge blunder — unfortunately something that I have grown accustomed to from the Twins front office over the past five years. Terry Ryan’s “Twins Revival Tour” just performed an unexpected U-turn with this stinker. Brutal.

classichawk

If Terry Ryan were Billy Beane, Capps would probably be gone. But Ryan (and Gardy, et al.) sees players not just as assets, but as people, and likely greatly appreciated that Capps was willing to throw innings, with less than his best stuff, because our other options were even more putrid. Capps could have better maintained his market value by going on the DL and pitching only at full strength, but he didn’t. He cost himself money by being a team player (and setting an example for playing through pain that a lot of others could have stood to follow), and it is only just that he not take the full hit for his actions. He may not be a GREAT closer, but he has been capable, and he is apparently a decent guy. To get those two things at the rate at which the Twins are paying him is not a terrible value.

TMW

I’m confused about the draft pick. Don’t you need to offer arbitration to eligible for the draft pick in the first place?

thegeneral13

stymietime is right. The draft pick is most likely deferred, not lost, and the salary is market value. It’s not a particularly inspired signing, but also not one worth getting worked up about.

TMW – under the new CBA agreed to a couple weeks ago you no longer have to offer arbitration to be eligible for FA compensation.

http://aarongleeman.com aarongleeman

Second, if Capps does maintain the closers role for this contract, the likelihood of him remaining the same type of free agent status is good, in which we are just delaying the opportunity to gain a draft pick for a few years. As far as I understand, the new CBA isn’t expiring after this year.

This is false. Capps’ status is a one-time exception to the CBA changing. He will not bring back a compensatory draft pick in future years.

stymietime is right. The draft pick is most likely deferred, not lost.

Again, false.

I’m confused about the draft pick. Don’t you need to offer arbitration to eligible for the draft pick in the first place?

Capps’ status was altered when the new CBA was signed. He did not need to be offered arbitration.

Steve J

, spending $1 on a player that has a 10% chance of having any sort of impact in the major leagues isn’t a perfect investment.

We know there are no guarantees with a prospect, but that’s why teams run another six teams worth of minor league franchises full of draft picks and filler. Volume.

A first round supplimental pick has tons of value, the odds of that player eventually being a better player than Matt Capps is fairly substantial.

http://twitter.com/jontler Jontler

It’s worth clarifying the terms of the new CBA restructure how free agent compensation works. In this particular season, Capps is a modified type B that does not require an arbitration offer to net a compensation pick.

This does not mean he’ll act as a possible deferred pick moving forward, though. The new free agent compensation system will require a team to offer a one-year deal that comes out to the average of the top 125 contracts in the league each year (about 12.4 million this year).

Obviously, the Twins would be insane to offer such a deal, and that number isn’t going down. This was a one-time-only shot at getting a pick for Capps. The best outcome now is that he rebounds big and the Twins are able to flip him at the deadline for something useful.

MA Moghe

How can Terry Ryan come in and make the same mistakes!
Explanations better be forthcoming on this move.
Looks like more of the same with Terry Ryan at the helm.
Let’s start building the organization for the future!
But I guess that’s too much to ask for from BS or TR.
Over-valuing a weak closer on a rebuilding team is mad.
You can’t make these kinds of decisions up!

Josh

I’m with Gleeman on this one. Bad call by the Twins.

$4.75M is significantly higher than it was worth to bring back Capps just so Gardy has “an experienced closer” at the back end of the bullpen. Especially since it also costs the team a draft pick, essentially. $2-3M? Ok, I can see that. I can live with that, even if I don’t think Capps is all that good, because closers are overrated anyways and the difference between a plus closer and an average closer is what…1-2 games? And frequently can’t be known who will be average and who will be good until the year is over?

But the price tag here is too high for a guy that grades out as average coming off a stinker of a year.

As seen in the Strib this morning, one agent was hoping Capps would get this deal, because he could immediately get more for his client by showing he was better than Capps. When other agents are giddy about the deal, it’s usually a sign you made a bad play.

Mike

Maybe they don’t have much faith in their ability to make a good draft pick. The past 6-7 years hasn’t produced a lot of good players out of the Twins draft.

birdofprey

MC, thanks for the link to Victor Wang’s Hardball Times piece on valuing the draft.

I share the majority view, and have been hoping the Twins might collect a bunch of high picks in the 2012 draft. After reading Wang’s piece, I can better understand the Capps decision from Ryan’s perspective. Suppossedly, it’s a shallow draft, lowering the odds that the Capps pick is one of great value. Also, I’m not so sure many of the alternatives out there, The Dotels and Broxtons, will be equal or better performers than Capps in 2012. And I predict that someone among the internal candidates for bullpen spots will emerge as a future closer during 2012. Someone like Gutierrez, Burton, or Burnett.

jama

I agree with the majority on this one. I think signing Capps to the league minimum would have been a bad signing though, because this team needs to rebuild and that draft pick had more value than one year of Capps pitching in my opinion. Even if Capps does turn things around and have a decent first half of the season I don’t think they’ll be able to flip him for much more than a low level prospect which they could have got through the draft. I haven’t even mentioned that the nearly $5 million would have been better spent on international signings or a player with more upside.

Scott

LOL at burnett ever closing. Burnett has zero business being on the major league roster right now. maybe a year or 2 from now.

spoof bonser

Bad move. Dumping Slowey for a bag of balls also a bad move, which is 100% the result of the stupid contract Blackburn got 3 years ago.

These guys need to wise up. They don’t have any grasp on the market because the market is dictated by stats they dismiss. Bury your heads in the sand and keep overpaying for saves, RBI’s, and bulldog mentality.

JB_Iowa

At least this is only a one-year deal. What concerns me most about this deal and the Cuddyer rumors is that it seems like the team is intent on re-assembling, to the extent possible, their “most valued” elements of the 2010 team.

That team may have won 94 games but they were an abysmal playoff failure (and that failure extends to all those elements they are so intent on retaining). I keep waiting to see a plan emerge that would have the possibility of leading the Twins not only to regular season success but to playoff success.

But it isn’t going to happen. Their goal isn’t to win a championship. It may not even be to win the division. It is to be “good enough” to be competitive in the division over the course of the season so that fans will keep their butts in the seats and keep buying beer and jerseys.

The Twins are the definition of “risk averse” — and it will doom them to mediocrity. They may win the division but they will never be playoff-competitive without some significant changes.

Mike

Well said JB!

thegeneral13

stymietime is wrong. The draft pick is lost, not deferred.

^^^Edited for blatant inaccuracies.

That obviously makes the signing worse than I was thinking. It’s still not terrible, but it’s bad practice to fritter away value, even if the expected value of any individual supplemental pick is small.

TMW

Thanks for the clarification on the CBA. I’m still piecing it together.

I’m still not understanding the venom. My expectation for the 2012 Twins (particularly what’s I’m deducing from the talk on the G&G podcasts) is that they’re going to assemble a solid enough team to generate a respectable number of season ticket renewals, and then will ultimately be sellers in June. This means Pavano, Baker, Liriano, Capps, and maybe Span are probably dealt by the deadline. Once that happens, we’ll get a clearer picture of what Hendricks/Parmalee/Revere/Benson/Outfield Plouffe/Valencia and possibly Gibson/Wimmers/Dozier/Michael will be able to contribute going forward. Hopefully, people still enjoy going to Target Field despite a crappy team and the Twins have flexibility to go into 2013 rejuvenated with youth and the ability to make a good signing or two.

This explains the $100mm payroll target this year and pretty much everything TR has done/not done since. TR is losing the compensatory pick with Capps, but if the defense actually gets to the balls Capps puts in play he’ll have trade value to yield something more valuble than a draft pick.

Steve J

I had some hope with the Caroll and the Doumit signing, but this deal with Capps sounds like classic Terry Ryan risk-aversion to the market. Could the Caroll and Doumit deals be products of Bill Smith?

stymietime

You are correct, and I was wrong about the deferment of the draft pick until after this contract. He likely would not be offered a contract $12.5M (and God help us if he did). However, Jontler brings up the other option this provides. If the Twins are out of the running in July, Capps can potentially be dealt for prospects at that time. Now, I don’t want to get into whether Capps is better/worse than any of the relievers traded at the deadline last year, but

Now we can debate what kind of return we could get from Capps at the deadline (obviously this will depend mostly on Capps’ performance during the first half), but I would prefer any of those combinations of players received during 2011 than spending $1M on an amateur player who has never played an inning of professional baseball.

I like optionality. And I like to manage risk. A one year guarantee provides very little risk. They may have given him an extra million than you would have wanted to for a one year contract, but you sometimes have to pay extra to mitigate risk. And that minimal risk, plus the option to extend the contract gives the Twins or a team trading for Capps some optionality with minimal long term risk. And if you now have the option to possibly trade him in July for a AA or AAA prospect or two, that also provides some value and return on your investment. Capps is a major league quality pitcher. If you gave me an over/under of 4.00 for his ERA for 2012, I’d take the under. And to me, that’s likely worth $4.5M. And in my opinion, having the option to trade him in July for prospects is worth more than having the option to spend $1M to draft an amateur player in June.

GSS

Sad, so sad. So much for changes in the direction in which the team is headed. So, Matt Capps was bothered by a bad arm … but can’t use that excuse for his mediocre play prior to last year. Afraid this is another “he’s a good guy to have in the clubhouse” move rather than a move based on talent or, ultimately, team performance. I anticipate another Capps demotion and shift to Perkins closing …

Pedro Munoz

Perkins will be the closer by June 1st.

MC

Part of the calculus of this is, this was the one and only way/time to get something for nothing for Capsp.

Twins couldn’t have gotten surplus value in a trade last year because a team would have had to offer him Arb and that would have been an above market contract. So, it was a rent a player… which we’ve seen Smith flip minor league filler for over the past several seasons. And Capps isn’t likely to net a future pick either.

Relief Pithers are going to be far cheaper to aquire going forward because of the new CBA is not likely to net draft picks. Capps only offers value for production this year and we give away potentially 6 years of cost control on a guy that could be an MLB player. (Ramos deal all over again)…. That’s why it’s a terrible deal. Forget who he is and what he’s done… there were plenty of other guys who could have filled that role this year and they wouldn’t have cost us a draft pick.

I warned a good friend of this last week to “sell your season tickets” if the Twins made this move because it proved they didn’t understand the market or player valuations. It’s a GIANT red flag.

Breaker

@ Steve J: “We know there are no guarantees with a prospect, but that’s why teams run another six teams worth of minor league franchises full of draft picks and filler. Volume.

A first round supplimental pick has tons of value, the odds of that player eventually being a better player than Matt Capps is fairly substantial.”

I don’t mean to pick on you; your post succinctly hit on the topic that I think most people are getting too excited about.

I can’t stand the signing, but I would say that assuming giving up the supplemental pick is a huge deal is incorrect. A first round supplemental pick does have value (I’m not sure ‘tons’ is accurate, but I don’t know that it is inaccurate, either – thanks for the link above, @MC); however, the odds of that player eventually being a better player than Matts Capps is ridiculously small.

You yourself said the reason: Volume. There are over 1,500 players drafted each year, and the odds of any of them bettering Capp’s six year career with an ERA+ of 121 is miniscule.

To be clear, I would rather have the draft pick and use the $4.75 million on two or three other free agent relievers in hopes of striking gold on one of them. But the overall tone of all the comments seems to be that this signing is atrocious (I agree) IN LARGE PART BECAUSE of the lost draft pick (I disagree).

It’s atrocious because the Twins have not learned anything about valuing relievers. And they have have most likely alienated a large portion of fans by bringing back someone who (probably unfairly) drew a lot of ‘it’s his fault!’ criticism for the Twins’ terrible season last year.

And @stymietime is 100% correct on this: “Everyone needs to let the Ramos trade go. It happened 2 years ago and it should have zero impact on making personnel decisions for 2012. A sunk cost is a sunk cost, people. Let it go.” Resigning Capps does not actually make the Ramos trade worse. It was terrible. But it’s done, and it’s not like if the Twins don’t resign Capps, they get Ramos back.

Alex

To me the problem with the Capps deal is simple — even if we’re not talking draft pick. The Twins could have gotten twice the number of innings with the same quality of pitching for that price, by signing two relievers instead of Capps. The pick puts it over the top.

The only upside to this deal and the other free agent talk is that the Twins seem to be planning to go over the $100 million dollar target. Obviously the Capps deal wasn’t a good one, hopefully they’ll spend whatever money they do far better.

Capps is going to leave a bad taste in our mouth for awhile I think. I shudder to think what would have happened had we traded Span for Storen as well. We would have given Wash. 25% of their starting lineup for two relievers. Crazy, and thank goodness it didn’t happen.

Steve J

Perkins will be the closer by June 1st.

I hope not, not only for reasons that our Closer would be a failure, but also that it would mean our best reliever (Perkins) was limited to one inning to get a statistic of questionalble worth. Really, the closer should always be your second best reliever. The best should be the guy who comes in in the 6-8th inning in situations where the game may be on the verge of blowing up.

http://fieldoftwins.blogspot.com/ Shane

The only good thing is that the Twins didn’t make the huge mistake of signing Francisco Cordero or Frank Francisco to 3 year $18 million+ deals. The bullpen looks like this now:

I would prefer the Twins trading Mijares, but that seems doubtful and would only save them about $300K with some replacement like Waldrop or Slama. I assume Burnett (yuck) and Burton (I am optimistic) are leading contenders for the final two spots.

TMW

“The only good thing is that the Twins didn’t make the huge mistake of signing Francisco Cordero or Frank Francisco to 3 year $18 million+ deals.”

This was my first thought, and I think it’s a very important point. You can mourn about a compensation pick if you want. But let’s face it, they made up their minds that they were spending money on a ‘closer’ type pitcher weeks ago.

Handing out a real, multi-year contract has a downside that’s significantly more damaging than missing out on a compensation pick from a 1 year stopgap that can be traded mid-season for a mild return.

ML

Is the Capps draft pick being lost a sure thing? If he rebounds and over performs, couldn’t he be a type A free agent down the road? It’s a lot of wishful thinking but it is the best possible outcome.

Pedro Munoz

My prediction on the closer role isnt based on what I hope happens. Shit, I hope that Nick Blackburn wins 20 games next year. No, my prediction is based on the fact that Matt Capps sucks balls.

MC

So I read Wang’s analysis as the value is estimated at $3 million…. So, there are booms and there are busts, but a pick in that range may say be in the $3m range and that brings the aggregate cost of the signing closer to $8 million…

Not to mention, as nearly everyone has stated, it’s probably a better use of dollars to sign 3 cheap ones hoping for a breakout than to sink the cost in Capps. I see this move as mostly unpopular with the both the geeks and the laymen… so it doesn’t help sell tickets either.

All around bad move that they should get scorched for. Now is the cost going to hurt them beyond this year, unlikely a long term set back… I just think it’s more of a red flag that they don’t understand the economics or player evaluation of the game they are in and that is much more concerning. This year I think you’ll see a lot more trades involving RP at the trade deadline, because they should be seen as the fungible assets they are rather than the trades that produced future draft picks.

And to bear out the fact that a draft pick is far from a sure thing… Capps, likely near a 60th pick out of 1500… thus a top 4% of players. Spread that out over on average having 4-5 years worth of players… it’s likely that the player is one of the 250-300 best prospects to make it to the show…. Ramos was at one point a 50th or so… but he wasn’t drafted with that type of investment…

I agree you analyze the trade separate from the signing but the math suggests this move is not all that much worse that the trade, which is widely viewed as one of the worst trades in MLB in the last several years.

It’s terrible and nothing should sugarcoat it.

scott

Great Scott!

scott

Oh, how I wish this blog were printed in the Star Tribune.

JR Cigar

In the past 20 years (dating back to the 1991 MLB draft), the Twins have picked the following players in the supplemental first round: Scott Stahoviak (91), Marc Barcelo (93), Kelcey Mucker (93), Travis Miller (94), Matt LeCroy (97), Matt Fox (04), Jay Rainville (04), Henry Sanchez (05), Shooter Hunt (08), Matt Bashore (09), Travis Harrison (11) and Hudson Boyd (11). Harrison and Boyd are too young to know if they will pan out, but the rest of that list is a who’s who of “who?” Not one of those guys made an appreciable impact even if they did make the bigs, so let’s put the value of the pick in it’s proper context. I don’t mind the Capps signing. I would have a bigger problem if we pay Cuddyer $25MM for three more years of corner OF mediocrity.

weston

Aaron.
few things:
why didn’t you do a day two winter meetings update like you did for day one?
please rip souhan a new one for us for the Slowey comments… Nevermind. just rip him a new one cuz he sucks.
when do you start your pioneer press gig? or did I miss it?
please keep up the good work. been reading for years and love it all.
also, Thanks!

MC

Just because the Twins failed to get good talent there in the past doesn’t excuse it.

TMW

“This year I think you’ll see a lot more trades involving RP at the trade deadline, because they should be seen as the fungible assets they are rather than the trades that produced future draft picks.”

Again, why not have a trading chip at said deadline to sell off as a rental to get a prospect much further along than the 60th pick in the draft could realistically be?

David

The Capps hatred is way over the top—way out of proportion to the wisdom or folly of a one-year contract for a relief pitcher, no matter who he is or when he pitches. Capps has become a lightning rod for Twins fans’ frustration over an abysmal trade and an abysmal year, and the vitriol being dumped on him is mindless viciousness, nothing less. The draft-pick loss is a convenient red herring—as if a sandwich pick in a down draft year would have yielded anything more than a middling prospect.

Grow up and get in touch with your hearts and souls, folks. Baseball is a game that does not define your self-worth, and Matt Capps is a human being.

Just saying

I know this is a pipe-dream, but the Twins need to start talking to the Marlins about Hanley Ramirez now. Now. NOw. NOW NOW NOW, ya know what I mean?

Again, I know it’s a pipe-dream, but…

MC

TMW… that’s the point. You can’t trade Capps for that value under the contract he has right now for an entire year, let alone for a couple month rental. It’s about valuation and he ain’t worth it.

MC

And again, I don’t have a problem with Capps coming back @ 3 if he didn’t cost a draft pick. And none of the commentary is vitriol to the player it’s to the org.

Pedro Munoz

“Grow up and get in touch with your hearts and souls, folks. Baseball is a game that does not define your self-worth, and Matt Capps is a human being.”

Wow, that is a really, really dumb comment. David, do you think anyone really “hates” Matt Capps? He’s a crappy pitcher and the Twins made a mistake signing him, but its nothing personal. Get in touch with your hearts and souls? Dude, get over yourself.

TMW

“TMW… that’s the point. You can’t trade Capps for that value under the contract he has right now for an entire year, let alone for a couple month rental. It’s about valuation and he ain’t worth it.”

They’re overpaying, but it’s a 1 year deal with an option. If a contender gets into injury trouble in the bullpen, Capps makes an interesting, low-commitment stop-gap at the price of B prospect. Said B prospect has a lot less variance of contributing to a major league team than a draft pick. I’d still prefer a draft pick, but this reaction is way overblown.